مجله مطالعات و تحقیقات ادبی
سال دوازدهم شماره 1 (بهار 1400)

Philosophical studies show that against existence for oneself, there is another being called existence for “the other”, i.e. as we think about ourselves, we find in our being another existence that depends on our existence. This paper seeks to answer the following question: what is the meaning of “the other” regarding the existentialism in Sartre’s play No Exit and Modarresi’s novel Yakolia va Tanhaei Ou? Considering the above question, the authors’ hypothesis is that the concept of “the other” in the two mentioned works means existence for the other, i.e. existence dependent on the other, which is the determining and guiding factor of individual behavior in the society. To test the research hypothesis, data was collected from a corpus of philosophical and literary works using the library method and was analyzed by the descriptive-analytical method. It followed that the authors’ hypothesis was confirmed and the meaning of “the other” was accordingly explained in existentialism.

Vis and Rāmin, by Fakhruddin Aschr('39')ad Gorgani, is one of the first love poems in Persian literature that has been morally rejected in the history of Persian literature as it is the first story of marital infidelity in both ancient and Islamic Iran. Regardless of the poem’s content, one cannot deny its literary, social, and cultural values as well as its unique status among the ancient works of Persian literature. Although the poem has immoral content, there are reasons behind the immoral actions of the characters in the story that need due attention to some points for the analysis of the poem from a moral criticism perspective. They comprise knowledge about the poet and the society, religious beliefs affecting the actions of the characters, and the four main themes of the poem: “pleasure”, “fatalism”, “conflict between seniority and youth” and “love”. Vis and Rāmin can be considered as a literary example of art for art’s sake doctrine and morally as an example of the moral relativity of the characters in the story.

Literary criticism has been one of the most controversial issues in the study of literature in Iran. Some have considered it an entirely Western area of study and therefore imported to the country, while others have traced its history back to pre-Islamic Iran. By distinguishing between the two terms of rhetoric as a premodern subject and literary criticism as a modern area, this paper examines the evolution of literary criticism in Iran from the years of the Constitutional Revolution to the early 2010s. These developments have been studied in four historical periods: from the beginning to 1941, from 1942 to 1978, from the Islamic Revolution to the late 1990s, and from the late 1990s to the early 2010s. The results show that despite the dominance of the discourse of literary criticism in literary studies and its successful examples in the recent decades, the application of this area to reading texts still has a long way to achieve greater success. Meanwhile, the emergence and the prevalence of interdisciplinary and problem-oriented studies in reading texts in the global academic environment have added to the complexity of the situation.

There are so many similarities between some cultures and civilizations as to say that the principle of Communicating Vessels is common among them. Therefore, Sufism in Iran has the status of philosophy in Greece, especially the Sufism of the first period – before the sixth century – which has been interpreted as Sufism of the intuition in contrast to the Sufism of later centuries, i.e. Sufism of the rhetoric and of the deception. The ideas and concepts in the Sufism of the first period as well as the words and deeds of some famous Sufis, especially the Sufis of Khorasan, confirm this proposition. For example, manifestations of Greek rationality, crystallized in the behavior and speech of Socrates of Athens, can be found in the behavior and speech of Abu Sachr('39')id Abuchr('39')l-Khayr of Mihana. In this paper, using the analytical-descriptive method and the comparative approach, we have determined the commonalities in the words and deeds of Socrates and Abu Sachr('39')id Abuchr('39')l-Khayr, and have tried to prove the principle that “water stands at the same level in all communicating vessels”.

Structural analysis is one of the methods for analyzing literary texts. A branch of interest to structuralists is narratology. Greimas, the Lithuanian semiotician, explains the structure of the narrative and the characters of the story using the dual contrasts and the actantial model. The aim of the current study is to investigate the structures of a story from Marzbān-nāma entitled “Irajasteh and Khosrow” and another story from Haft Peykar entitled “Fitnah and Bahram” using a structuralist approach. The characters and actors in the stories and the similarities and differences of the two stories and the type of actions are evaluated. The result shows that while the two stories have a common deep structure, they are not homogeneous in terms of their surface structure. The subject actor in the story of “Irajasteh and Khosrow” plays an important role in the plot of the story, while in the story of “Fitnah and Bahram” as an active actor, encourages the subject or the hero to act.

Authoritarianism is the psychological mechanism of man to escape from the negative aspects of freedom in the society. Fromm believes that man surrenders to a superior power to escape the suffering of decision-making. Consequently, through authoritarianism man suffers from three opposing feelings: either one surrenders with a sense of powerlessness to a superior power (masochism), or one has arrogance and a sense of domination over others (sadism), and sometimes one communicates with the society through a masochistic-sadistic coexistence which leads to the loss of individual freedom and independence. In Behbahani’s poems, these mechanisms are manifested in the community around Simin with two approaches of submission and domination in their mild forms. Using an analytical-descriptive method, this paper examines the psychological mechanisms for escaping from the negative aspects of freedom in Behbahani’s poems from Eric Fromm’s perspective. The findings show that in Simin Behbahani’s poems – as Fromm asserts – she surrenders to a powerful whole that is sometimes the sacred love and sometimes destiny (fatalism) and sometimes the earthly love of Simin whom she cannot resist. Furthermore, occasionally in her poems, Simin goes so far as to dominate her beloved by asking God to be able to inflict endless psychological suffering on him through absolute domination.